The present trend of consumer behavior moving into online media is fast becoming the new standard for many industries. It’s no surprise that the exact same is true for unconventional education through the multitude of online courses now available online. It has opened more avenues of learning outside the classroom setting, and has empowered nearly anyone with an idea to talk about their knowledge.
Whether you wish to teach your hobbies, or something associated with your experience, there are many online course platforms (OCP) or learning management systems (LMS) that may help you begin. Some OCPs will offer services from scratch, like making your website, while others focus mainly on helping you reach your target audience. The 1st step is discovering which one can move your ideas seamlessly onto the screens of your prospective students.
With all these LMS to choose from, there’s one company that has stood out for its balance of reasonable pricing, customizability, ease of use, and marketing control. Teachable is the top choice of instructors, and after pitting it against its competitors, it is clear why.
Teachable vs Udemy Zapier and Teachable
Udemy was among the leaders of LMS, which explains how and why their audience is still among the biggest markets in the business: they were there first. Udemy and Teachable are now two of the most popular choices in selling online courses, but they are very distinct in essence and progressiveness.
Differences
Teachable allows users to build their own course website and sell their brand, while Udemy is merely a marketplace for course creators that have existing courses. At the surface, this means that Teachable lets you use your custom domain while Udemy will have your clients keep coming back to Udemy.com. On another level, Teachable gives you tools to create and personalize the entirety of your course, from content building and editing to sales, which aren’t at all possible on Udemy. One of the more immediate consequences of this is that Teachable lets you communicate more directly with your clientele, by giving you access to pupil’s data and information; but as soon as you’re on Udemy’s platform, your students’ information is theirs exclusively for whatever other purpose it may serve them. And in line with that, Udemy seems to care about selling classes, period; therefore it is not only your courses, but every other course on their listing. There have been testimonials that mentioned this, when even competitor’s courses have been promoted to students that the instructor brought in. Sure, that may work in favor of newer users who might need the marketing, but from the point of view of a user, that business sense could seem overly spammy and unnecessary.
Marketing at a Price
It is Udemy’s cut-throat policies which have turned off many former or potential users. They seem to be aware of the very value of their following, and have taken advantage of it, much to the detriment of the lecturer. True, Teachable doesn’t promote the courses for its users, that responsibility is left entirely to them. In an extreme manner, Udemy markets their user’s courses aggressively, but with a substantial price. That price is a huge chunk of control and earnings.
Udemy began with a 90% creator revenue share, but they slashed those percentages to 70%, and then again quite suddenly to 50% throughout the years. A 50% share of the course earnings may still seem reasonable to others, especially to those whose courses were previously created for other purposes and were merely shared more openly on Udemy, but that hurt a number of the instructors that were selling solely in the corporation’s site. In addition to this, what have driven people over the edge are the restrictions on pricing. In 2016, Udemy put a cap on its prices, and all classes on the system needed to be within the $20-$50 range. This is regardless of the uniqueness or skillfulness of a course, and it’s natural for some to turn away and look for better outlets for their ideas. If you combine both of these policies, and have a class priced at $20 and a 50% instructor revenue, selling on Udemy becomes almost impossible as a reliable source of primary income.
So while it’s true that Udemy has a massive audience which you might want to tap into, most of the topics that they offer are really quite limited to mostly Technology and Personal Development. Consider that and their dog-eat-dog marketing strategies and absorption of your brand’s identity, I would say Teachable is the answer to many of Udemy’s shortcomings. In the long run, nothing is more satisfying than building your own following.
Teachable vs Thinkific
Pricing Zapier and Teachable
If you’re looking for an LMS that is comparable to Teachable’s cost, Thinkific is another terrific company that offers a lot for less. Both offer their first tier plans for free, and start charging for each higher tier thereafter. Many beginners choose Thinkific because of its generous waiving of transaction fees on any of its plans; however a closer look at the fine print will show that it costs extra for certain features which are already included in Teachable’s monthly flat rates. But, those deviations are somewhat negligible, and with a range from $0-$499 per month, you can’t go wrong with either of these.
Beginner-Friendly
But pricing is not all they have in common. Both enable their users to create and sell personalized courses on their hosted platforms, without the bother of handling the technical aspects like site maintenance, hosting, and security.
Newbies to the biz have a tendency to gravitate toward these companies for their easy-to-use interface which allows nearly all formats of content, including video, audio, PDFs, and other multimedia. The majority of these can be uploaded into the courses with a simple drag and drop builder. They can host unlimited videos, create quizzes, send certificates, and track the progress of their pupils.
Zapier and Teachable
Convenience
Among the benefits of Teachable over Thinkific is the former’s class builder: it allows bulk changes to classes, which can be a huge time-saver, especially for the ones that have built quite a number on their system; also it allows multi-format content in one lecture. What’s more is it can be connected to cloud services, like Dropbox and Google Drive, for quicker uploads from your computer.
In terms of course delivery, Teachable has an iOS application that enables pupils to learn on their mobile devices, which is something which Thinkific doesn’t have.
Sales and Marketing
After the content creation comes the selling and marketing of your courses. This is where Teachable wins by a landslide. Both give the liberty to sell one-time or recurring goods, offer discounts and packages, or add affiliate programs, but Teachable has more choices. The real clincher is Teachable’s 1-step checkout process, which decreases customer fallout (which occurs more during obsolete, 2-step processes like Thinkific’s). Additionally, it includes a 1-click upsell upon checkout, increasing transactions per client. Another major advantage is Teachable’s payment gateway that accepts credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay payments. Another service included is the automated payout to affiliates and authors (when applicable), taking care of tax forms and similar documentation. For those who have users from the EU, it even goes as far as including EU VAT on top of course prices. That definitely gives you more value to your content. Click here to check out pricing for Teachable.
Teachable vs Podia Zapier and Teachable
Among the online class platforms with the cheapest top tier is Podia. Though it doesn’t have a free plan, and its basic plan comes at $39/month (with Teachable at $29/month), its top and only remaining plan is offered at $79 (with Teachable at $399). This price gap could be a result of the vastly different things they each offer. On the one hand, Teachable is a fully customizable course creator and seller, and on the other, Podia chose to focus on Online Course Hosting, Membership or Email Marketing, and Digital Downloads. Those will instantly help you narrow down your choice to what is best suited to your needs.
Podia’s streamlined categories lets users filter out other aspects that they may not need to dip into, like e-commerce. Its interface is easy, clean, and fairly great for novice instructors. That said, this is why it may not satisfy the needs of creators who wish to do more with their site. Since the variety isn’t much, more advanced users may find it lacking.
Course Creation and Control
Teachable beats Podia in design and customization tools, with options for simple uploads of files, texts, and quizzes. Those that dabble in code can also experiment with that within Teachable. Users can easily get the sleek look of a professional site by choosing from default themes which can be customized to satisfaction. Teachable’s editor makes it easy to create changes and push upsells, maximizing both user’s time and profitability.
Both have a trickle content attribute for those that would like to space the lessons offered to their clients, and prevent cramming modules in 1 go. What is unique to Teachable is advanced control over course compliance, like keeping tabs on students’ completion of quizzes and lessons. Additionally, it has built-in certificates that users can create and send to their students at the end of the course. Concerning integrations, Teachable has better autoresponders and analytics, both of which are extremely important to sales and marketing.
Recommendation Zapier and Teachable
To summarize, Teachable‘s interface is approachable even to the most inexperienced users, has excellent creation and builder resources for designing a slick course website, gives you control over your advertising and sales, has attributes that cut time and effort on backend paperwork, and provides the best value for money. With more updates and user feedback, they’re certain to be a trusted choice for many years to come.
